Dead of Winter (25 page)

Father Xavier held up the cross. “Show yourself, demon. What is thy name?”

A raspy voice said, “My name is
Mirabelle
.” She pulled back the hood. Damp stringy hair, like black seaweed, hung over her sickly pale face. The fur coat dropped to the dock. She wore only a soaked nightgown that clung to her skeletal body. The small breasts of an adolescent girl poked the transparent fabric, exposing her nipples. When Mirabelle looked up with her dead gray eyes, Father Xavier froze, staring in awe and terror.

The priest took a step back, feeling dizzy.

The girl craned her neck, walking toward him with raised hands. Blood trickled from two slashed wrists. She whimpered, “Help me, brotherrrrr…”

Andre came bounding up behind the thing that resembled Father Xavier’s long-dead sister. Her eyes turned black. Hissing, she fled behind a wall of stacked crates.

“That was
her
,” Andre said. “The other twin.”

Father Xavier snapped out of his paralysis. “We’ve got her cornered.”

They both ran to the stacked cargo at the far end of the pier, splitting up. As Father Xavier rounded the crates, holding out his cross, he paused to catch his breath. Around that corner was his dead sister.

Evil hides in many skins
.

Mustering up more courage, Father Xavier raced around the corner and was thrown back by a burst of flapping feathers. He fell on his rump. A flock of ravens spiraled upward over the harbor. The birds cawed and flew upriver. Andre helped Father Xavier to his feet. They stood at the end of the pier, catching their breath.

“Where did she go?” Andre asked.

Father Xavier just shook his head, ashamed that he was trembling. There was no trace of the girl who looked like Mirabelle. Nothing but a few falling feathers.

91

An hour later, the two canoes carrying sixteen men cut through the rapids. Oars slashed the white-frothed surface as the voyagers paddled up the Ottawa River. A herd of storm clouds pursued them on rumbling hooves. A deafening thunderclap splintered the sky with a dozen bright cracks. The oarsmen ducked, hunching their shoulders as they paddled faster in a race to escape the squall. The attempt was futile, for the icy torrents reached them, and sleet rained down hard. Father Xavier huddled in the middle with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. The choppy waves added nausea to the priest’s misery. Another hot wave surged up his throat, and he vomited over the side.

“First canoe ride, eh, priest?” Dr. Coombs yelled against the wind. The burly physician sat one bench back. His thick arms drove a paddle into the river, splashing cold water onto Father Xavier’s back. He glared over his shoulder. Dr. Coombs was actually grinning. “I bet you’ve spent your entire life in the city, am I right?”

Father Xavier wiped a handkerchief across his mouth. He had thrown up the last of his breakfast and was now just heaving.

Dr. Coombs slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, priest, this is just Mother Nature’s way of showing us she’s in a foul mood. Kind of like a woman before she gets her monthly curse.” He laughed. “It’s all part of the adventure.”

“Do you have anything…for sea sickness?”

“Sorry, I don’t. All my remedies are packed in a crate. I can fish something out once we portage, but until then you’ll have to muster up some sea legs.”

Father Xavier clung to a rum barrel stored next to him.
If I survive this ride, it will be a miracle.

He didn’t know what was worse, the constant rise and fall of the rapids, or having to listen to Dr. Coombs talking so gleefully about the ride. The Jesuit was thankful Andre was riding up two benches forward with Master Pendleton. Father Xavier would be embarrassed to have his apprentice see his mentor sick as a greenhorn at sea.

He wondered how his Uncle Remy dealt with motion sickness while sailing across the globe with the French Navy.

“Trick is to watch the horizon,” Dr. Coombs said, as if reading his thoughts. “And drink plenty of water.” He offered his pouch.

“
Merci
, but no.” Father Xavier knew if he put anything else in his stomach he’d only wretch it back out. He watched the passing trees that lined the river. It seemed to help, at least with his queasiness. But he was riddled by more than just the upward and downward motion and numbing cold. He couldn’t shake the nightmare he had witnessed back at the docks. His dead sister Mirabelle had stood before him in the flesh, her skin as pale and clammy as the last time he saw her.

Somehow the demon that possessed Gustave Meraux had found a way into the vault of the exorcist’s mind and unleashed a Pandora’s box of dark memories.

92

The Goddard Mansion

Montréal, 1830

When Xavier was ten years old, he lived in a mansion in the elite section of Montréal. His father, a relentless big game hunter, was away on some far-off safari in Africa or India or the Canadian wilderness. Xavier’s mother was a busy socialite who made more time for galas and tea parties than her own two children. Xavier’s older sister, Mirabelle, was the only family member who ever paid attention to him. She used to read him books and take him on adventures through the garden, where she swore fairies and elves lived. They often flew kites or played hide and seek or sat and fed the ducks at the pond in their back yard. At age thirteen, Mirabelle had been a blooming girl with long, curly hair and freckles covering her nose and cheeks. She was smart and funny and loved to play games. Xavier idolized her.

One day after school, he came home to the sound of screaming from upstairs. He raced up the winding marble staircase. On the second floor he ran down the wide corridor. The screaming escalated from a room at the end of the hall. A door slammed open and closed. His sister’s bedroom. As Xavier reached the threshold, the door stopped banging. He stepped inside.

“What is thy name, demon?” Two priests stood at the foot of Mirabelle’s bed, chanting and flicking bottles of water. Xavier’s mother was in here, too, along with the family doctor. The four adults were all facing his sister’s bed. Mirabelle’s wrists were tied to the bedposts. Her face was withdrawn, her eyes bulging, her mouth opened into a horrid grimace. She twisted her head at a strange angle, gazing at Xavier with eyes that were rolled back solid white. She snarled, “Brotherrrrr…”

The room seemed to shake. Mirabelle’s four-poster bed rose off the floor an inch, and then tapped the floorboards. “Xavier, help meeeeee…”

“Mirabelle!” Before Xavier could touch her, his mother yanked him out into the hall. She explained that his sister was under the Devil’s spell, and the priests were performing an exorcism.

“Xavierrrrrrrr!” Mirabelle kept screaming his name, pleading for him to help her. He wanted to save her, but the adults wouldn’t let him back in the room. So he remained out in the hall, listening to the priests chanting. He brought out his own bible and prayed for his sister. He pleaded for God to send down angels to fight the demon that possessed his sister.

Now, forty years later, Father Xavier floated in a canoe of what could very well be the river Styx, carrying them all to hell.
No, I can’t think such thoughts, or the demons have won.
The priest closed his eyes and returned his attention to the deep inner faith that had gotten him through many spiritual storms.
It wasn’t Mirabelle back at the docks,
he reminded himself.
It was the forces of evil.

The demon who had possessed Gustave Meraux, the Cannery Cannibal.

The man at the masquerade party disguised in the red-and-white tribal mask.

The twin succubae in Andre’s dreams.

And the skeletal girl with Mirabelle’s face…they were all faces of the Beast who calls himself “Legion.”

Evil hides behind many faces.

Father Xavier gazed at the faces of the
voyageurs
paddling the canoe parallel to him. On his canoe, Master Pendleton and Brother Andre were facing forward. Father Xavier turned to look at the faces of the men paddling behind him. Dr. Coombs grinned with an odd gleam in his eye. The queasiness returned to Father Xavier’s stomach as a dark realization hit him.

No one could be trusted.

93

At dusk, just as the sun was setting behind the fort’s spike-tipped walls, and the rising moon cast silvery light along the leafless branches, Tom made the brisk walk across the snowfield that covered the central courtyard. There was no wind, so it was unusually quiet this evening, the only sound being his shoes crunching over hard-packed snow.

Tom felt aristocratic wearing his Sunday best—a brown wool overcoat and three-piece suit. The ensemble was topped off with a D’Orsay hat that had once been his father’s. Like the pistol Tom always carried, the one with the Hatcher family crest emblazoned on the handle, the brown top hat held a special meaning. His father had worn it while leading Montréal’s police force and hobnobbing with the city’s upper crust. Orson Hatcher once said, “A man can rise from middle class to nobility just by wearing the right clothes and mixing in with the right people. Hatcher men have always been able to mix with both worlds.” The D’Orsay hat was one of many heirlooms that his father had passed down. While Tom felt more comfortable dressing modestly, he occasionally relished dressing up for formal events. Dining at Noble House was just such an occasion.

“Tom, is that you?” spoke a woman’s voice off to his left. Anika was walking with Makade. The black wolf dog woofed. The native tracker was wearing a hooded fur parka. Her bare hand clutched the legs of a dead rabbit that hung by her side. Anika narrowed her eyes at Tom’s outfit. “She must have cast a powerful spell on you.”

“Who?”

“Lady Pendleton. Isn’t that the reason you’re wearing that silly hat?”

Tom gripped the lapels of his coat. “I’ve been invited to supper.”

She tilted her head. “Is that all?”

Tom didn’t like her tone. “If you have something to say, Anika, then speak it.”

She looked away briefly, swallowed, and then once again cut into him with her sharp gaze. “This morning I saw Willow come out of your cabin.”

Tom bristled. “She stopped by to check on me.”

“She was there for quite a spell.”

“It’s nothing to be concerned about.” His agitation became overpowered by a sudden nervousness. He feared the Indian woman might have peered into the windows and saw him and Willow kissing. “Were you spying on me?”

Anika stepped forward. “Everyone in this damned village knows Willow fancies you. And when you two are alone behind closed doors…word goes ’round is all I’m saying.”

Tom’s chest burned with a mixed brood of fear and anger. He stared at the surrounding cabins. “And who’s spreading such gossip?”

“Never mind that. You should be more worried about having secret liaisons with Master Pendleton’s wife. He is not a man to cross.”

Tom’s anger flared. “Anika, you are certainly not one to speak. Everyone knows you’re Avery’s whore.”

The Indian woman’s eyes filled with rage. Grunting like an animal, she turned and stomped off toward her cabin, the dead rabbit in her hand dripping a trail of blood.

94

Inside Noble House, Tom started up the winding staircase. As he climbed the second flight, he heard voices and footsteps coming down. Lt. Hysmith and the heavy-set officer named Walter Thain rounded the banister with one of the native servants, a girl of about fourteen. They stopped at the landing when they saw Tom.

“Good evening, Inspector.” Walter Thain nodded. “Good to see you out and about.”

“I’m feeling much better, thanks.” Tom was grateful he had shaved earlier. He wanted to get on the officers’ good graces and return to work.

Lt. Hysmith’s face pinched. “What brings you to Noble House?”

“Uh, Lady Pendleton invited me over for supper.” Tom furrowed his brow. “It was my understanding you two would be joining us.”

“No, not tonight,” said Thain. “We have business to attend to.” He looked at Hysmith. “Our work seems to never end.”

Tom studied the servant girl that stood between the officers. Her eyes never looked up from the floor. “I’m eager to get back to work myself. Perhaps I can assist you. I can tell Lady Pendleton another evening.”

“Nonsense,” said Thain. “It would be rude to decline a lady’s dinner invitation, especially when the cooks have gone to all the trouble.” He patted Tom’s arm. “Enjoy supper, Inspector, and do behave yourself. Lady Pendleton can cast quite a spell.” He winked. Hysmith gave Tom a suspicious look before climbing down the stairs.

Did they know about what happened this morning? He feared one of the watchtower sentries might have spotted Willow leaving his cabin. Or perhaps Anika was the Judas and went straight to the officers. Would she doublecross Tom? If she were scorned, she bloody well might. Hell hath no fury and all that.

No, I’m just on edge
, Tom decided. If Hysmith knew the truth then he would have said something. The lieutenant had never been a man to withhold his discontent.

As the officers rounded the lower landing, Thain put his bloated hand on the girl’s shoulder. Tom got a creepy feeling. He quietly followed them down the stairs. Thain and Hysmith took the native girl down the bottom stairwell to the cellar.

What was this about?

Tom had never been down to the ground floor. The cellar had no windows. As far as he knew, it was where all the fur pelts were stored, along with the fort’s rations of food and rum. Were they doing inventory tonight? If so, why take the girl?

Tom wasn’t about to ask why. He was already treading a thin line by what happened today with Lady Pendleton. He returned to the fourth level and reached the door to the Pendleton home.
It’s just dinner
, he reminded himself. He knocked. The butler named Charles answered. He was a full-blooded Cree with ruddy cheeks, shortly cropped silver hair, and wore a black three-piece suit with gray vest. A visual clash between heathen and high society. With a gray-gloved hand, he waved Tom inside and took his coat and hat. “Lady Pendleton requests you wait in parlor.” The butler hung his coat and hat on a rack then handed him a glass of red wine.